Sunday, November 11, 2007

This Day; Last Year

I check my watch. As usual I'll have to hustle if I'm going to get there on time.Great, the road's blocked off and the next road is one way. I'll have to take Austin Avenue downtown.

Okay, now look, I'm stuck behind a police car, flashing its lights and moving turtle slow. I fall back to keep a good distance between me and the law. He's moving even slower now if that is even possible. I check my watch. Huff a sigh, fall further back, keep putting along.

I notice a group of older women joyfully waving at me. I wave back. Across the street now a man with three boys all wave and yell as I drive by. Again I wave, these people all must know the wavin guy. I see still more groups waving and brandishing flags... DUH It's Veteran's Day.

I am in the Veteran's Day Parade. Not only in it, but leading it. The police cruiser is clearing the street for the parade to follow. Yikes!I keep waving, everyone is so enthusiastic. I'm not a veteran, so maybe I shouldn't wave.

Wait a minute, my husband is a veteran. My father and grandfather are both veterans.I used to march in the Veteran's Day Parade during high school, representing our flag corps. This celebration includes everyone, because everyone, in thousands of known and unknown ways, has been touched by a veteran.

I have as much right as anyone else to wave in this parade. I have this right because soldiers, both present and past, have served to endow me and every person here this right.

No, I won't allow this opportunity to pass me by. I putter and wave and don't once check the time.

I'm late picking Lean up from pre-school. I grab her hand and we run down Austin Ave. We become part of the crowd and now I'm an onlooker, waving, smiling, and honoring.

I cannot listen to the The Star Spangled Banner without getting choked up. I'm an ultra-patriotic. Sometimes on Veteran's Day or Memorial Day in our church we sing the patriotic songs, and I just can't sing them without bawling my head off. I know, I know, I'm such a sap. But I do love the good 'ole USA! BTW, did you go "join" the parade this year?:)

I want to buy a box of those giant foam finger things for my family to wave around at the next Veterans Day Parade.

My grandpa got buried in the Veterans cemetery with the full veteran procedure and gun salute and everything. It made me weep with the beauty and the prestige and the honor of it all. My career Army uncle and his former military sons wept too....mainly because they figured they were catching a glimpse of what their own funerals will be like one day.